Meadow Lane Riffs, poem up inside Edinburgh trams

 

Poems on Edinburgh Trams

 

Delighted to learn that Edinburgh City of Literature have selected my poem 'Meadow Lane Riffs' to be one of the poems up in the Edinburgh trams during August this year.  So if you are riding the trams, have a look out for it.

https://cityofliterature.com/opportunities/tramlines-poetry-contest/

An Elegy for St Kilda

So pleased that the composer, Fraser (David) Macdonald has set another of my poems from my St Kildan sequence to music for a choir. It's 'Elegy for St Kilda'. (See words below).   The premiere was part of a concert including madrigals by Monteverdi, and works by Vaughan Williams and Anna Clyne sung by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra Young Singers today in the New Town church, George Street, Edinburgh.

Fraser's music was very elegiac, but with sadness mitigated by a lilting feel like a lullaby. So moving, especially sung by a choir with such beautiful voices and in a church with great acoustics. It was lovely that quite a few people came up to me afterwards and said how much they'd enjoyed the poem.

 https://www.sco.org.uk/events/monteverdi-madrigals/

Elegy for St Kilda

Why would I need this thing called a mirror?

I know I have my father’s eyes.

I know I am beautiful in my lover’s eyes.

I know a pool which tells me no lies.

Why would I need these things called trees?

I have shelter in the stone and turf of my house, 

I have warmth from burning peat and dulse, 

snug in our crubs like puffins in their burrows.

Why would I need this thing called money?

That which cannot be bartered is like sand;

That which does not fill the belly nor till the land,

That which is not itself, I cannot understand.

Why would I need this thing called writing?

If we don’t speak with our mouths and heart,

If we lose our memory, we lose our past;

If we fix our story, it will not last.